Thursday, October 20, 2005

Immigration

A particularly ugly side of "globalization" and "free trade" is the immigration issue. Official government policy is to stop the flow of "illegal" immigrants:

"We’ve got to stop people from coming here in the first place." -- George W. Bush, 10/18/05

“We need more brute enforcement,” Chertoff declared. He pledged that the administration’s policy would be one of “return every single illegal entrant—no exceptions.”

However, actual policy is just to make it difficult to get here, and scary enough that undocumented workers won't complain about low wages, long hours, or brutal conditions. As the WSWS points out, there is a split in aWol's base over the issue. The social conservatives (aka xenophobes, religious right, etc.) don't want "those people" here. But the big-money corporate conservatives do want them here, as long as they work hard for very low wages and stay scared. With the Bushies, it is money that really talks. So while globalization, represented by NAFTA, CAFTA and the WTO, makes survival in Mexico and Central America increasingly difficult, the government will continue to make crossing the border difficult and dangerous--but certainly not impossible. This just means that those who do get in will have proven themselves to be strong and resilient--and that they'll be petrified at the prospect of getting caught.

This is an administration that BS's constantly about "freedom" and "democracy." But when it comes to a huge, important part of the country's labor force, they want to make sure that the workers have neither freedom nor democracy. They just want to make sure that there are always enough of them here so that nobody in America can get a decent wage for manual labor. Cheap labor conservatives.